Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!cs.utexas.edu!rice!uw-beaver!milton!phaedrus From: phaedrus@milton.acs.washington.edu (The Wanderer) Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.system Subject: Re: Lost my applications! Message-ID: <3390@milton.acs.washington.edu> Date: 10 May 90 02:13:11 GMT References: <2210@zipeecs.umich.edu> <2843@husc6.harvard.edu> <13834@burdvax.PRC.Unisys.COM> Reply-To: phaedrus@milton.u.washington.edu (The Wanderer) Organization: University of Washington, Seattle Lines: 31 In article aland@chaos.cs.brandeis.edu (Alan D Danziger) writes: >In article <13834@burdvax.PRC.Unisys.COM> dave@PRC.Unisys.COM (David Lee Matuszek) writes: > Others have already suggested rebuilding your desktop when you install > Desktop Mgr. Just to be safe, I'd also rebuild the desktop when you > remove it. >Yes, it's almost 'mandatory' that you do this if you want things >to work properly. However, considering that you should probably >delete the Desktop file when you use DT Mgr., it'll automatically >rebuild itself when you are no longer using DTM. Removing the Desktop file will work, but there's one problem with this approach: if you ever need to boot without DM (if your System file gets trashed and you boot from the System Tools disk, for instance), you will have to wait approximately 4.7 million years for the entire Desktop file to be rebuilt. Here's an approach that I picked up from somewhere that works just fine: 1. Install Desktop Manager, restart and rebuild the desktop, so that DM's Desktop DB and Desktop DF files arecreated and set up. 2. Initialize a blank floppy. In addition to giving you a new place to put things, this also produces a blank Desktop file. 3. Using MacTools or something else that lets you copy invisible files, move the floppy's Desktop file to your hard drive. This uses up almost no space on the hard drive, and if you ever need to boot without DM, the system will only add the contents of open windows to the Desktop file, not the contents of the entire hard drive. -- Internet: phaedrus@u.washington.edu (University of Washington, Seattle) The views expressed here are not those of this station or its management. "If you can keep your head while those about you are losing theirs, consider an exciting career as a guillotine operator!"